Cutaneomuscular reflex responses recorded from the lower limb in children and adolescents with cerebral palsy

Cutaneomuscular reflex (CMR) responses were recorded from lower-limb and tr unk muscles in 27 subjects with cerebral palsy (CP) (spastic, 21; athetoid, six) and in neurologically healthy (control) subjects, aged 3 to 15 years, while standing. In the 21 subjects with spastic CP, but not in the six sub jects with athetoid CP, CMR responses were more widely distributed between ipsilateral lower-limb and trunk muscles compared with age-matched control children. CMR responses in older subjects with CP were similar to younger c ontrol subjects, lacking supraspinally mediated, long-latency components. S hort-latency, spinally-mediated, excitatory CMR components were seen simult aneously in pairs of distal, antagonistic lower-limb muscles in half of the subjects with spastic CP, but in none of the control children. In subjects with spastic-type CP, the abnormal reflex responses indicate disordered sp inal and supraspinal inputs to motor neurones, although there was no convin cing correlation between these responses and the severity of spasticity.